Friday, 12 August 2016

Ban Driven Grouse Shooting-please sign

If you haven't yet, please consider signing the petition below which calls for a ban on Driven Grouse Shooting to be debated at Parliament. It would be glorious to reach the 100K signature target on the #inglorious12th. I don't know about you but I'd rather see our raptors back to the numbers they should be rather than shot and poisoned by the keepers doing dirty work for the elite...with no prosecutions. The management of these moors is subsidised too, in part by taxpayers, paying the estates to manage the land for grouse so they can charge silly money for the wealthy to come and shoot. It stinks and we can call for it to be stopped:

2 comments:

What a sad comment Rob - you've obviously got a serious chip on your shoulder in respect of 'the elite'. The law in respect of destroying or disturbing harriers is clear, and those keepers who are clearly breaking the C&WA in respect of a schedule one species should be prosecuted with the utmost vigour. The banning of grouse shooting would however, be an ecological catastrophe for the uplands leading to the loss of many more iconic species. The old saying goes, 'you can't eat the scenery' and our uplands are no different to the land that I farm in Shropshire - if it doesn't pay it won't work. The Hen Harrier needs and deserves a better deal, but banning grouse shooting is a one way ticket to an ocean of sitka spruce and mollinia - no good to anyone, especially Circus cyaneus.

You could say I have a chip on my shoulder regarding the persecution of raptors and it looks like they're getting poisoned and shot on grouse moors, owned mainly by the elite but others too. The law is clearly failing. Evidence is hard to obtain and the penalties no deterrent. I don't have a chip on my shoulder with all the elite, just anyone shooting raptors or getting someone else to do their dirty work as stated. Is grouse a food industry the country depends on or does the land subsidy and high shoot day rates keep things ticking? This is about driven shooting- not all, raptor persecution and finding a way the industry and our native fauna can coexist.

Much about?

This multi-contributor blog is a reel of North Wales bird news, ID discussion, and any other trip reports and useful information added by birders regularly out in the field. Please contact me at: robinsandham (at) hotmail.co.uk if you want to contribute or report any notable sightings.